An overview of the research approaches on musical performance robots

The relation between the human and the music has a long history dating from the antiquity. Music constitutes an important mean of communication of everyday life. Since the golden era of automata, music also served as a mean for understanding the human itself. In particular, the human organs required for playing musical instruments were mechanical simulated. Nowadays, thanks to the advances on robot technology, the research on Musical Performance Robots (MPR) is aiming in understanding better the human motor control as well as serving as a mean for understanding better how robots can transmit sensitive information to the human partners. Additionally, the research on MPR is promoting the introduction of novel ways of musical expression that have been hidden behind the rubric of musical intuition. In this paper, an introduction of the research trends on MPR is presented. Examples of such research trends are described.